Construction Sector Transparency (COST) Tanzania Chairman, Engineer Kazungu Magili said in Dar es Salaam this week that the aims of the fourth report is sharing information from the procuring entities to the public.

Eng Magili said in the fourth phase report, a few procuring entities have volunteered to share information relating to projects that they have executed. He named the projects as Standard Gauge Railway (SGR), Tanzania Intermodal Railway Project (TIRP), Tanzania Ports Authority’s Dar Port expansion project, Tanzania Roads Agency’s Mpanda to Koga in Tabora and Dar-es-Salaam to Kibaha six lanes highway project.

“The reason for picking these three projects is because the procuring entities have cooperated with CoST Tanzania to undertake disclosure and assurance in order to maintain their good public images. We encourage other procuring entities to also work with us in disclosing costs of their projects which are public investments,” Eng Magili argued.

He called upon the public procuring entities to discourage delays in disclosure of information as it can affect transparency and accountability by distortion hence impacting on CoST Tanzania’s goal of enabling the public understand key issues major projects.

According to him delay or refusal to provide information timely may raise questions lead to finger pointing at the procuring entities by the public which may wonder reasons behind such attitude.

“This can bring a negative image to the procuring entities, the image of low integrity to the public and may lead to organizational mistrust,” warned Eng Magili. CoST Tanzania was established in 2007 and launched officially in 2008 as part of CoST International based in UK.

In 2010 CoST Tanzania conducted the first audit of five projects countrywide with findings which influenced Public Procurement Regulatory Authority to seek amendment of its parent law of 2001 and 2004 which also changed regulations to, among other things, accommodate the disclosure clauses for public projects. The Public Procurement Act 2011 and its regulations was as a result enacted by parliament.

In 2017 and 2018 CoST Tanzania expanded its local constituency by approaching parliament through Africa Parliamentary Network for Ant-Corruption (APNAC) with which it signed a Memorandum of Understanding.

Eng Magili asserted that CoST expects that improved transparency will be supportive of better management of public finances and enable infrastructure delivery to meet value for money tenets.

“CoST Tanzania shares a belief that, delivery of public sector infrastructure projects should support sustainable economic growth that contributes to sustainable development and poverty reduction, but mismanagement in construction can undermine potential social economic benefit and value for money,” he stressed (interview with Eng Magili will be published next week).